


What Father Doesn't Know

by seashadows



Category: The Hobbit (2012)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, LiveJournal Prompt, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 12:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seashadows/pseuds/seashadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the Carrock, Thorin accidentally triggers Bilbo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Father Doesn't Know

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt on the Hobbit Kink Meme.

He hadn’t felt anything like this for years – that deep, twisting panic that started in his stomach and uncurled until it squeezed his heart. Nor had he cried like this for twenty years, since the night his father died; he’d sobbed into his pillow until dawn broke, wondering if his desperate thoughts had caused it. What sort of gentlehobbit wished death on a loving father, when his bread had always been provided for?   
  
Bilbo Baggins did. And even remembering the things that Bungo had said and done, the guilt had never left him.   
  
“Did I not _say_ that you would be a burden?” Thorin was taller than Bungo had been, and he was rather more muscular, but the way he looked down at Bilbo with fire in his eyes was just the same. “That you would not survive in the wild? That you have no place amongst us?”   
  
_Didn’t I tell you to watch your feet, Bilbo? Didn’t I say so? Now look what you’ve done! Careless!_   
  
Bilbo felt his blood run cold, even as his heart started pounding. It was as though Thorin had disappeared, replaced with Bilbo’s father the day he accidentally broke Great-Grandmother Berylla’s best vase. Or the day he tracked mud onto the rug. Or the day they’d had an argument, and goodness, Bilbo didn’t even remember what he’d said, but he remembered what Bungo had.   
  
And what he’d done.   
  
The sweep of his father’s arm. The books knocked off his bedside table. The scream.   
  
_Clean it up! Clean it up! Get out of your bed and CLEAN IT UP!_   
  
He’d sunk to his knees then, too scared to move another muscle, and he did the same now. The stone of the Carrock was cold under his legs, but all Bilbo could think about was making the pain stop the only way he knew how.   
  
“Please,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Thorin, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I’ll leave if you want me to – I’m sorry, please, just…stop.”  
  
He winced. Father had never taken that well. _Stop? What have I done so wrong, lad? I should be the one asking you to stop, with what you’ve put me through!_ But through the tears running down his cheeks, Bilbo could see that Thorin had stopped talking.   
  
“Bilbo?” Thorin took a step or two towards him, and despite himself, Bilbo felt his legs folding under him as he started babbling again.   
  
“Sorry, sorry! I shouldn’t have interrupted! I’m so sorry –“  
  
“What have you done that you feel you need to be sorry?” Thorin interrupted, and if Bilbo hadn’t been a finger’s breadth from rocking back and forth on his bottom, he might have snapped something back at him.

“N-nothing, only I…” He stood up and dusted off the back of his trousers, staring down at his feet. Beneath the hair, his toes were digging into the rock, as though straining for a foothold. “I’m sorry.” Bilbo hiccupped and wiped his eyes, although the tears were still coming so hard that it was of little use.   
  
“Burglar, calm down.” Thorin reached out towards him with a large hand, and Bilbo felt his knees wobble as his arms shrank back towards his body. “Bilbo?”  
  
“My father,” he said. His eyes found his feet again. Father had said never to tell anyone, because they would _make trouble_ \- those were the words he’d used. But it had been twenty years, and wasn’t that long enough to tremble in fear? “He – he said…” Bilbo gulped and bit down on his tear-slicked bottom lip. “Well. If I started right off by apologizing, h-he wouldn’t – he wouldn’t hurt me as much.”  
  
The other Dwarves were still silent, so much so that Bilbo heard the catch in Thorin’s throat. “How did he hurt you?” Thorin lowered his hand and took a few steps back. Bilbo hesitated. “Burglar…” Thorin’s voice was warmer now. “There is nothing he can do to you now.”

“It’s so foolish!” Bilbo burst out, the words falling from his lips like a waterfall. “It wasn’t as though he hit me. And he was a _good_ gentlehobbit and he always…always provided and…” He stopped to wipe his eyes. The tears were falling so hard that he couldn’t see anything but a Thorin-shaped blur in front of him. “I tried to t-tell Mother once.” His voice came thick and choking. “She said…”   
  
He couldn’t go on, not for a bit. His throat and chest clenched and he gulped out hard sobs, holding back so much that it hurt to breathe. Thorin had asked, yes, but still, one didn’t lose one’s dignity in front of strangers. Father had taught him that, too. “She said – was I trying to make out that Father was a common criminal, and when I said such things, it made her not want to listen.”  
  
Someone put a heavy hand on his shoulder – comfortingly heavy. “Oh, lad,” Bofur said softly. “He’s not going to make you feel alone anymore.”  
  
“Oh, I know. I do know.” Bilbo stepped back, leaning into the arms Bofur wrapped around his waist. It wasn’t a touch he would have allowed otherwise, but he needed the comfort that he knew Bofur wanted to provide. “He wasn’t terrible most of the time, but I – I had to watch what I said. One wrong word…” He swallowed. “He’d shout, then. He’d shout that I was careless. Sometimes he’d tell me that the things I said hurt him, as though he wasn’t hurting me!” That was the worst, when Father said that it was _his_ fault.  
  
“And when I shouted,” Thorin said, “I brought that back to you.” The look in his blue eyes was one Bilbo hadn’t seen before; it was softer and more sympathetic than he’d ever thought Thorin could be. “Bilbo, you must…” He stopped and shook his head. “ _Please_ accept my sincerest apologies.”   
  
“Accepted.” Bilbo wiped his nose against his sleeve. He had a handkerchief or two now, but he didn’t think he had the presence of mind to go searching through what bedraggled belongings remained on his person.   
  
“The things I said earlier – I meant them only as a comparison,” Thorin continued. “I meant to say that I had never been so wrong in my life.” And he stepped forward, wrapping Bilbo in an embrace.   
  
Bilbo’s eyes popped open in surprise, but he made no move to pull away. With Thorin squeezing him firmly in front and Bofur still holding him from the back, he felt the safest that he’d had since leaving Bag End – and perhaps even the safest he’d felt since his mother died.   
  
When Thorin broke away, and Bofur spun Bilbo around and kissed him – to raucous shouts from the rest of the Dwarves – he knew that these Dwarves, no matter their weapons, would never lift a finger or a tongue against him, as long as they knew him.   
  
And the next day, when Bofur scolded Thorin for using the word ‘careless’ in Bilbo’s hearing, he knew one thing more: this was one person, meant to love him, who would never let him feel alone.


End file.
